Japanese cuisine

Fish that are salted and then placed in rice are preserved by lactic acid fermentation, which helps prevent the proliferation of the bacteria that bring about putrefaction.

[27] Japanese cuisine is based on combining the staple food, which is steamed white rice or gohan (御飯), with one or more okazu, "main" or "side" dishes.

The phrase ichijū-sansai (一汁三菜, "one soup, three sides") refers to the makeup of a typical meal served but has roots in classic kaiseki, honzen, and yūshoku cuisine.

This contrasts with Western-style home dinners in which each individual takes helpings from large serving dishes of food placed in the middle of the dining table.

[29] Although this tradition of not placing other foods on rice originated from classical Chinese dining formalities, especially after the adoption of Buddhist tea ceremonies; it became most popular and common during and after the Kamakura period, such as in the kaiseki.

Among the nobility, each course of a full-course Japanese meal would be brought on serving napkins called zen (膳), which were originally platformed trays or small dining tables.

Some restaurants might use the suffix -zen (膳) as a more sophisticated though dated synonym to the more familiar teishoku (定食), since the latter basically is a term for a combo meal served at a taishū-shokudō, akin to a diner.

"bounty of the mountains") (for example, bamboo shoots in spring, chestnuts in the autumn) as well as the "fruit of the sea" (海の幸, umi no sachi, alt.

Eating wild game—as opposed to domesticated livestock—was tolerated; in particular, trapped hare was counted using the measure word wa (羽), a term normally reserved for birds.

Also, certain rustic sorts of traditional Japanese foods such as kinpira, hijiki, and kiriboshi daikon usually involve stir-frying in oil before stewing in soy sauce.

Traditional Japanese food is typically seasoned with a combination of dashi, soy sauce, sake and mirin, vinegar, sugar, and salt.

[51] The o-hitashi or hitashi-mono (おひたし)[31] is boiled green-leaf vegetables bunched and cut to size, steeped in dashi broth,[52][53] eaten with dashes of soy sauce.

One type is goma-ae (胡麻和え)[56] where usually vegetables such as green beans are tossed with white or black sesame seeds ground in a suribachi mortar bowl, flavored additionally with sugar and soy sauce.

[56] An aemono is tossed with vinegar-white miso mix and uses wakegi[56] scallion and baka-gai (バカガイ / 馬鹿貝, a trough shell, Mactra chinensis) as standard.

Small local microbreweries have also gained increasing popularity since the 1990s, supplying distinct tasting beers in a variety of styles that seek to match the emphasis on craftsmanship, quality, and ingredient provenance often associated with Japanese food.

[63] Japanese whisky began commercial production in the early 20th century, and is now extremely popular, primarily consumed in highballs (ハイボール, haibōru).

[66] It figures in the Japanese word for appetizer, zensai (前菜); main dish, shusai (主菜); or sōzai (惣菜) (formal synonym for okazu), but the latter is considered somewhat of a ladies' term or nyōbō kotoba.

Strictly vegetarian food is rare since even vegetable dishes are flavored with the ubiquitous dashi stock, usually made with katsuobushi (dried skipjack tuna flakes), and are therefore pescetarian more often than carnivorous.

Vegetarianism, fucha-ryōri [ja] (普茶料理) was introduced from China by the Ōbaku sect (a sub-sect of Zen Buddhism), and which some sources still regard as part of "Japanese cuisine".

One aspect of the fucha-ryōri practiced at the temple is the wealth of modoki-ryōri (もどき料理, "mock foods"), one example being mock-eel, made from strained tofu, with nori seaweed used expertly to mimic the black skin.

[13] British journalist J. W. Robertson Scott reported in the 1920s that the society was still 90% vegetarian, and 50–60% of the population ate fish only on festive occasions, probably due to poverty more than for any other reason.

Japanese cuisine offers a vast array of regional specialties known as kyōdo-ryōri (郷土料理), many of them originating from dishes prepared using traditional recipes with local ingredients.

Yōshoku can be traced as far back as the late Muromachi period (1336–1573) during a culinary revolution called namban ryori (南蛮料理), which means "Southern barbarian cooking", as it is rooted in European cuisine.

Numbers of Japanese foodstuff and seasoning brands such as Ajinomoto, Kikkoman, Nissin and Kewpie mayonnaise, are establishing production base in other Asian countries, such as China, Thailand and Indonesia.

As a Muslim majority country, Indonesians expect that Japanese foods served there are halal according to Islamic dietary law, which means no pork or alcohol are allowed.

[98] Today, Japanese restaurants can be found in most major Indonesian cities, with a high concentration in Greater Jakarta area, Bandung, Surabaya and Bali.

Japanese chain restaurants such as Coco Ichibanya, Ippudo, Kura Sushi, Marugame Seimen, Mister Donut, MOS Burger, Ootoya, Ramen Kagetsu Arashi, Saizeriya, Sukiya, Sushiro, Tonkatsu Shinjuku Saboten, Yayoi Ken, and Yoshinoya, can all be found in Taiwan, among others.

The California roll has been influential in sushi's global popularity; its invention often credited to a Japanese-born chef working in Los Angeles, with dates assigned to 1973, or even 1964.

[139] Some elements of Japanese cuisine involving eating live seafood, such as Ikizukuri and Odori ebi, have received criticism overseas as a form of animal cruelty.

For example, Japan consumes 80% of the global supply of blue fin tuna, a popularly sought sushi and sashimi ingredient, which could lead to its extinction due to commercial overfishing.